ORKNEY, EARL OF, a Scottish title held at different periods by various families, including its present possessors the Fitzmaurices. The Orkney islands (q.v.) were ruled by jarls or earls under the supremacy of the kings of Norway from very early times to about 1360, many of these jarls being also earls of Caith ness under the supremacy of the Scottish kings. Perhaps the most prominent of them were a certain Paul (d. 1099) who assisted the Norwegian king, Harald III. Haardraada, when he invaded Eng land in 1066; and his grandson Paul the Silent, who built, at least in part, the cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall. They were related to the royal families of Scotland and Norway.
In its more modern sense the earldom dates from about 138o, and the first family to hold it was that of Sinclair, Sir Henry Sinclair (d. c. 1400) of Roslin, near Edinburgh, being recognized as earl by the king of Norway. He ruled the islands almost like a king, and employed in his service the Venetian travellers Nicolo and Antonio Zeno. His son Henry (d. 1418) was admiral of Scot land and was taken prisoner by the English in 1406, together with Prince James, afterwards King James I. ; his grandson William, the 3rd earl (c. 5404-80), was chancellor of Scotland and took some part in public affairs. In 1455 William was created earl of Caithness, and in 1470 he resigned his earldom of Orkney to James III. of Scotland, who had just acquired the sovereignty of these islands through his marriage with Margaret, daughter of Christian I., king of Denmark and Norway. In 1567 Queen Mary's
lover, James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, was created duke of Orkney, and in 1581 her half-brother Robert Stewart (d. 1592), an illegitimate son of James V., was made earl of Orkney. Robert, who was abbot of Holyrood, joined the party of the reformers and was afterwards one of the principal enemies of the regent Morton. His son Patrick acted in a very arbitrary manner in the Orkneys, where he set the royal authority at defiance; in 1609 he w,as seized and imprisoned, and, after his bastard son Robert had suffered death for heading a rebellion, he himself was executed in Feb. 1614, when his honours and estates were forfeited.
In 2696 Lord George Hamilton was created earl of Orkney. He married Elizabeth Villiers, and was succeeded by his daughter. Anne (d. 1756), the wife of William O'Brien, 4th earl of Inchi quin. Anne's daughter Mary (c. 1721-91) and her granddaughter Mary (1755-1831) were both countesses in their own right, the younger Mary married Thomas Fitzmaurice son of John Petty, earl of Shelburne, and was succeeded in the title by her grandson, Thomas John Hamilton Fitzmaurice (1803-77), whose descendants still hold the earldom.
See Records of the Earls of Orkney, ed. by J. S. Clouston 01914)